I'll have a banana split, hold the ice cream.

It's been six weeks since I started my journey towards a Primal Lifestyle.

I originally started eating "low sugar, high protein", in college, when my doctor hypothesized that my mood-swings, fatigue, and depression might be Hypoglycemia. Several years Later I had the actual blood test and was on the low edge of 'normal,' but for six years of my life I assumed I was hypoglycemic and I age low-carb to cope with it. Not Atkins level low-carb, just lower than the average American. I guesstimate that I was usually around 100-150 grams a day during this period.

After about seven years of that, my life got very stressful, very busy, very hectic, and I slid off the low carb and leaned more towards SAD. I was still far under the levels of most Americans, but I was definately outside the range of what I would now consider appropriate. I thought I was still eating healthy, but I never bothered to track the nutritional value of the refried-bean breakfast tacos I was eating on my way to work. . . I had maintained the same weight for ten years, after all. Legumes are a good source of protein, they say . . .

Then my boyfriend moved in with me and came with what seemed like a pantry full of white-flour processed foods. He had been a competitive cyclist for a decade, and was addicted to pasta. But he'd been off the circuit for two years, and continuing to eat 300-400 grams of refined carbs, daily, had not done him any favors. When he whined about his weight I told him, try low carb. He dismissed my advice because, and I love this part - "You've never been fat."

No, I've never been fat. Because I never ate that shit to get fat with in the first place. But I started eating it with him and although I only gained a pound a year, I was feeling bloated and fatiqued a lot. I still tried, when I was on my own, to eat low carb.

I was patient and kept trying, every now and then, to remind him that there were alternatives to starvation diets and chronic cardio (I love that phrase -- thanks Mark!). Finally one day we were at the bookstore and I happened to walk by a table where "Why We Get Fat" was on display. "I hope this isn't another freaking low fat book" I thought. I was thrilled to find it was the kind of nutritional advice I could agree with and I rushed off to find my bookworm-boyfriend. I caught up to him in the History section and eagerly shoved the book in his hands. He agreed to look at it, and then he decided to buy it.

Two days later he was only a third of the way through the book, but he was thoroughly convinced that low-carb was the answer to his problem. I was thrilled. I enthusiasticly agreed to support him by renewing my own commitment to low-carb eating. We downloaded carb-counting aps for our iphones and went out for a last-hurrah dinner at our favorite Tex Mex restaurant. Goodbye Chuy's, I will miss you!

While he continued to read through Taubes, I did research online and found Paleo, then found Primal (or as I first understood it, Paleo with cheese on top). There was enough money in the book-fund for one, just one, book, and after careful deliberation I got Primal Blueprint, the version without pictures. I loved it, and read some sections off to the boyfriend. Payday, I drove straight from work to the bookstore to get him the Primal Blueprint picture book, because by that time he was a little burned out on the science and just wanted accessible diet advice.

We keep PB-21-day on our kitchen table, so we can refer to it often. My first copy of the primal Blueprint is already lent out to friends. Dearheart has lost 23 pounds and a couple of waist-inches. I lost a few pounds myself (not my goal, but not unwelcome) and haven't had a SINGLE blood sugar crash since the day I cheated and had enchilladas for dinner. Unexpectedly, my seasonal allergies improved enough that I can go up to two days off the Claritin (but not three, not yet).

Useful things I have learned:

Re-fried beans might be a good source of protein, but they are an even better source of carbs.

Paleo recipes rock, especially if you add cheese.

Coconut oil tastes like coconut (duh) and I don't like coconut-flavored eggs at breakfast. Use saved bacon grease for those.

things I still want to learn:
How do you sop up the meat juices without bread?

It doesn't matter what I ate for breakfast today, since I . . .um . . .lost it all within ten minutes of the meal. I guess that stomach-bug going around my office finally got to me.

I know I should be sipping bone broth, but I don't have any on hand. In fact, it was on my to-do list to go to the butcher shop tonight. I'm still going to try that, but for now I'm stuck with mint tea and regular broth.

Feel so much better today! A little worn down, but who knows what that is caused by? I'm still tinkering with the right food for myself, and some days I just feel worn out. *shrug* I'll get it right eventually.

L: not hungry, but I knew I'd be hungry later if I didn't eat. Cafeteria was service ground beef with slightly thickened juices, broccoli that tasted steamed and look broiled? they were also serving potatoes, but I skipped those. I wish now I'd skipped the whole meal. About an hour after lunch I got very drowsy and felt bloated -- a sure clue that those juices were thickened with flour, which I should have known in the first place. I was distracted and thinking about work, is my excuse.

mid-afternoon: Famished! But not in the mood for more of the snackfood I had at work, so I decided to tough it out until supper.

S: leftover Polish Stuffed Cabbage, home made. I had primal-ized a friend's recipe and it's nummy. Unfortunately, we didn't have any lacto-fermented sauerkraut, so I had to resort to standard sauerkraut. Must learn lacto-fermentation skillz.

I checked fit-day and if the estimates are correct, I ate less than a thousand calories today. whoopsie. I need to find higher-calorie foods.

L: two 4-5? oz pork tenderloins with big chucks of fat still attached. about a cup of ratatouille. One golf-ball sized roasted potato. Another cup of coffee, this time with heavy cream.

S: probably going to eat a big ass salad with a scoop of salmon-salad on top (salmon, mayo, chives, celery seed and granulated garlic), and a side of steamed asparagus.

WOD: "move slowly" for about three hours, gardening at my Aunt Ginger's house. We deadheaded some flowers, pulled some weeds, picked leftover fall-leaves out of her flower-beds, dug up some invasive plants, turned the compost, swept the walks . . . She sent me home with a maypop-vine transplant and some rain lily bulbs. When she wasn't looking, I attempted a chin up on a tree-branch. no luck yet . . .

--Severe Seasonal Allergies, requiring Claritin and Flonase every day, year round. One "take benadryl and go back to bed" allergy attach at least once a month.
-- Annual sinus infection and bronchitis, sometime between October and February, requiring time away from work and cutting off all of my fitness efforts . . . .
--Symptoms of Hypoglycemia.
--Fatigue
--GERD
-- PTSD

Life after Primal:
-- No more GERD (but I do still get burps after really spicy meals. that's normal, right?)
-- Still struggling with Fatigue, but I have some days where I am shockingly perky.
-- You would NEVER KNOW I was once diagnosed as hypoglycemic.
-- Only take Claritin if I can SEE the sheen of pollen coating the surface of the car. Still using Flonase.
-- Still have PTSD, but I didn't think it would be that easy.

GOALS:
-- END my need for all allergy meds.
-- END hypoglycemia.
-- Be energetic, every day.
-- Do 5 pullups. On the same day.
-- Go 5 or more rounds in a fencing tournament and still have energy to drive myself home.
-- Never have another sinus infection?? Could such a thing be possible?
-- Have better functioning adrenal system, so PTSD is lessened.
-- Learn to like avacados. I've heard all my life how nutritious they are, but I have always hated their taste. Must get over that.

Dearheart seems to have a cracked rib. He already had the two torn rotator cuffs and now we've figured out that 'bone bruise' from the day he was wrestling with the dog and got slammed -- it's probably a cracked rib.

I swear, this is the most injury-prone man I've ever met. It's not that he's clumsy, it's just that *if* he get's hurt, he gets *really* hurt.

My Aunt recommended a supplement called Bone-Up. She was able to improve her bone density after a year of the supplement and it seems to be a balanced mix of calcium and all the other minerals we need for calcium to work correctly. I bought a bottle and then I plan to spend part of today making a Comfrey salve.

Last night I did not have a salad after all. Lunch was so filling, I never got hungry again. I did drink two cups of bone broth, because I ran out of storage containers and only had two cups left in the pot.